The most elite VIP-only club around

Let us take the case of Senator Fabian Manning, who was a Conservative member of Parliament from Newfoundland before he lost his seat in the October 2008 election.

The year after the loss, Prime Minister Stephen Harper placed him on the soft, deep-dented and kindly cushions of the Red Chamber, shrouding him in the status of “Honourable,” and gifting him one of those remarkably versatile expense accounts that are one of the principal boons of membership in that great Club.

On March 28, 2011 (note the date) another election was called, and Mr. Manning decided to run for the seat he had recently lost, and to do so resigned from the Senate.

Wow! Mr. Manning was throwing away a the plum of plums, the sinecure of sinecures in Canadian politics, and letting the people decide if he should be in the government. Mr. Manning, so I thought, wanted to earn a place in the Parliament of Canada, not simply accept a perch with the bunch of well-heeled slackers sucking on the near-lifelong lollipop of a senatorship simply because a prime minister, Liberal or Conservative, had once smiled on them.

I thought this was very brave and forthright of Mr. Manning, which was, of course, unspeakable folly on my part.

He lost the election. And on May 18, 2011 — the ink barely dry on his March 28 resignation letter — Mr. Harper announced Mr. Manning would be restored to the bracing ozone of the upper house, hoisted back without a blush to the most plushly appointed, high-service patronage bordello (I speak metaphorically, of course) in the nation.

We may easily read the tacit understanding: Resign, run for the party, if you lose we’ll put you right back in. Find me some “sober second thought” in that transaction.

The point here is to illustrate, with a name that is not Wallin or Duffy or Harb or Brazeau, that the Senate is only very rarely what it always claims to be — a cool and wise check on the House of Commons.

The Senate is a slush bucket of partisan rewards, dispensed at the whim of prime ministers (or their friends)

This much-touted constitutional status has long been suffocated, vacated or rendered utterly ancillary or accidental to its real and only abiding purpose: rewarding the party faithful with taxpayer money.

Partisan practice has totally overwhelmed its functioning. And a few stray “cause” senators, who occasionally hint that the Senate is in fact not totally offensive or useless, cannot change that.

No, the sad fact is that the Senate is a slush bucket of partisan rewards, dispensed at the whim of prime ministers (or their friends) to reward out of the people’s pockets work for the party, friendship with the prime minister, a talent for fundraising or campaigning (Marjory LeBreton, David Smith, George Furey) and those who for any other reason swim in the tonic waters of prime ministerial favour.

So when we hear, for example, that Ms. Wallin had some difficulty distinguishing her “partisan” activities from her Senatorial ones — which she offers as the source of her expense difficulties — I do not even understand what she is saying.

The Senate is wholly a partisan warehouse for the elite or well-connected members our political system. There is no distinction to be found and there is not — in reality — a distinction to be made. It is partisan — that is the Senate’s being.

The Senate is a taxpayer-funded extension of the two main political parties and hardly anything else at all

Partisans appoint. Partisans receive appointments. Partisans vote along partisan lines. They campaign and fundraise. They consult on talking points and strategy. They host (Wallin and Duffy) prime ministerial town halls. The Senate is a taxpayer-funded extension of the two main political parties and hardly anything else at all.

And please do not offer that senators “represent their regions or their provinces.” Under what blue moon does that happen? When Mr. Duffy did town halls for the Prime Minister — was that a Charlottetown benefit? When Ms. Wallin racked up more air miles than most astronauts, was that for Wadena? When Mr. Harb sold his “residence” and kept .01% — the difference between freehold and toehold I guess — what part of his province gained from his arcane manoeuvre? And Mr. Brazeau — what aside from Twitter outbursts and a masochistic yearning for the boxing ring is he representing?

The Senate is an influence machine. If a person rises high enough in the party, or offers some “use” to a Prime Minister, he gets the glory of the upper chamber to glut on its offerings and increase the range of his contacts. Status feeds status. Boards embrace the eminent. There are awards dinners, banquets, conferences, inside the country and outside, to diversify your time and to which you will always be a welcome VIP, all expenses paid. The Senate is a lever to ever-greater career benefits. It is a networking event with diplomatic passports.

But let us not confuse any of these activities with the “life of the nation” or “service to the country.” They are, in the main, drenched with self-interest and careerism, and always – always — more an expression of partisan political vigour before anything even resembling neutral patriotic enterprise.